Coffee Morning Whispers: A truncated version of cat and the rat

Patsy was in a state of hysteria when she rang me to come over.

When I arrived she was on her iPad, watching the new ad for Marks and Spencer's men's swimwear.

The advert features the model David Gandy and is conducted in slow motion. For a change, the togs encasing his pert buttocks are not the type where a budgie may be asphyxiated but are of the more boring trunk variety.

So, instead of the camera posing lingering shots of the area between his belly button and thigh, it focusses on shots of David removing his shirt before conducting a dive into a pool that would put Tom Daley to shame.

He then emerges from the water, sleek as a seal pup, as the camera lingers on his abs. A close up also focusses on his hairy armpit before finishing with David cheekily undoing the buttons of his trunks.

If you asked me now what the trunks looked like or what colour they were, I would be unable to tell you.

However, if you asked Patsy how many hairs were under David's armpit she would know to within 100, which sort of defeats the purpose of the ad, don't you think?

rat

Anyway, that's not why Patsy was in a state. No, she had rang me because the cat had gone out in the early hours and returned as she was having her breakfast, meowing furiously until she opened the kitchen door.

There on the step, he had deposited a rat that was bigger than himself.

I had a look. He was a fine specimen, well fed and with teeth like razors. I poked him with a stick to make sure he had met his maker. He was as rigid as an ironing board. We decided the only way to get rid of him was to dig a hole and bury him.

We set about the task with gusto, with me doing the digging and Patsy issuing orders. The cat sat beside us grinning like the proverbial Cheshire.

We slung the rat within and covered him up. Job done, we sat down to a coffee.

It had hardly been two minutes when there was fierce meowing at the door.

Sitting on the doorstep was the cat accompanied by the rat, which he had just dug up.

Fit to be tied, Patsy rang Jose at work and gabbled away in Spanglish before hanging up looking like thunder.

"To paraphrase, Jose says there is nowhere in the marriage contract that says he has to leave work to come home and deal with a dead rat."

Personally, I think he's made a mistake. Easier to bury a dead rat than be buried by a mad wife…